“People are very into small, hand-crafted. They’re used to seeing it in their neighbourhood.”

– Harley Smith, Longwood Brewery

It’s really satisfying working with people who love what they do. Thanks to Ginger and the Okanagan Fest of Ale team for inviting us to be part of the 2017 event.

The Okanagan Fest of Ale was established in 1996 making it one of the largest and longest running annual beer festivals in the Pacific Northwest.

Operating as a non-profit society, managed by a volunteer Board of Directors, the Okanagan Fest of Ale Society hosts an annual Consumer Craft Beer and Cider Tasting that functions to support and promote the growing world of quality craft brewery products, promote local tourism and support charitable organizations within the Regional District of the Okanagan-Similkameen.

As of October 2016, $577,660 in net proceeds has been gifted back to qualifying registered charities.

Take a look at this video for Ogopogo Meats and Sausages. It’s a short, effective video that targets key messages. The video shares the story of Ogopogo Meats and Sausages and includes a call to action at the end. It also provides useful and interesting information for customers. The video took around four hours to film over three days. We also added a series of photographs. Post-production took 8-10 hours.

The idea of showcasing the South Okanagan’s best and freshest was hatched on a car dashboard under the glare of the Osoyoos midday sun.

Admittedly a little abstract, Brianne Hearle of Destination Osoyoos decided to put together a series of short videos featuring some of the region’s top chefs incorporating the field-to-table theme after she successfully baked some cookies in her car one hot summer day.

“It’s kind of an unusual story. I had done a video for social media the year prior to demonstrate how hot it gets here and I baked cookies in a car and it went so viral,” said Hearle. “When we started talking about it (cooking series) we thought because of all the farm-fresh produce and the great chefs it would be really incredible to have something to show that off.”

With that in mind, it was decided to contact some of the best chefs throughout the region and put them to the creative edible task of producing some really good eats from the valley’s bountiful in-season harvests.

The actual work to produce the videos was entrusted to Erick Thompson of the Summerland-based ET2Media and Andrew Jakubeit of Groove-V Production of Penticton.

Each participating chef was required to go to the farm where the ingredients were raised and footage was taken of them interacting and selecting what they planned to use.

“This is such a great place for chefs and we hear that all the time because of how fresh all the ingredients are,” said Hearle. “It’s so inspiring for them, it’s sort of like a kid in a candy store.

“We’ve noticed we’re getting a lot of foodie tourists as the number of talented chefs in the area increases. As big as the wine is, people will travel for food, and having the combination of food and wine only makes us more desirable.”

She added with increasing importance to the general public on organic and free-range farms, the field-to-table concept has become more than just a fad.

“It’s one thing to say on the menu that your ingredients are locally sourced, but to see a video that shows where the chefs are going to select the produce, that the chef actually knows the farmer, is paramount,” said Hearle. “I really think people’s palettes are becoming more educated.”

For her own culinary challenge, which will obviously have to wait until next summer, Hearle plans to tackle auto-baked bacon and eggs with croissant.

To see the car-cooked chocolate cookie and this summer’s other videos visithttps://www.facebook.com/DestinationOsoyoos.

This is the fifth video in a series we worked on with The Vancouver Sun and Groove-V Productions. We shot this episode at Fort Berens Winery in Lillooet. The Vancouver Sun Winegrowers Series features wine columnist Anthony Gismondi speaking with British Columbia wine producers. Other videos in the series include Seven Stones Winery, Black Sage Vineyard, Nk’Mip Cellars and Serendipity Winery.

We really enjoy the creative process involved in making videos. It also helps when our clients are fun to work with. That was certainly the case with Virginia and John Weber at Orofino Vineyards. Not only did we have a great time collaborating with them, we also learned a lot about what goes into making award-winning wine. Orofino was ranked #18 at the 2014 WineAlign National Wine Awards of Canada in Penticton. Congratulations.